


Too Afraid of Losing You to Ask You to Stay

by There_Once_Was_A_Girl



Series: The Tales of Jemma Oluransi [3]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Communication Failure, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-23 00:13:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7459057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/There_Once_Was_A_Girl/pseuds/There_Once_Was_A_Girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shitty and Lardo haven't talked about what their relationship is exactly, and both of them are too afraid of losing what they have to ask if it's something Serious. But if they don't talk before graduation, they might lose each other anyway. </p><p> </p><p>This is part of my Tales of Jemma Oluransi verse, but it could probably be read as a stand alone work if you can roll with the fact that Ransom and Holster have a daughter named Jemma.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As promised a Shitty/Lardo fic for you guys! I had so much fun writing it!
> 
> However I was incapable of looking shit up for this, so there may be many inaccuracies to cannon regarding Lardo's Junior Show. I couldn't remember what season it was in, so it's vague but cold.

Whenever anyone asked Shitty or Lardo when they started dating they would usually just laugh. Actually if anyone asked them if they were dating they would usually just laugh. They had always been the best of friends, that much was clear, the other parts had come later… the problem was, it hadn’t all happened at once. One day the year before Bitty arrived, they had been sitting around on the Haus roof smoking and talking like always. Neither one of them knew how they ended up kissing, they just sort of did. That’s how their whole relationship had played out, neither of them really knew what they were doing, and neither of them talked about it, it just happened. It was okay, it worked for them, they always presented a united front anyway, it was fine. Lardo always told herself that it was fine. 

The only thing was Shitty’s graduation was approaching all too quickly and they still weren’t talking about it. Lardo didn’t know what to do. Every time she thought she could say something Shitty would turn to her with those wide eyes so bright and positive and full of light and excitement about whatever the topic of the day was, and she couldn’t bring herself to have a conversation that might mean losing that. Shitty never seemed to take anything seriously. Sure he cared deeply about a ton of things, social justice, equality, Jack Laurent Zimmermann, the team, but he still seemed… blaise about everything. He cared, but in the way one cared about things that didn’t truly affect them, or so it seemed. She had seen it before, when shit got too serious around Shitty, like his family, he ran. Lardo was terrified of trying to talk and making him run. She couldn’t imagine losing Shitty. She was pretty sure it would destroy her. It had been bad enough when she had been studying in Kenya and they could only see each other through Skype. She couldn’t bear the thought that Shitty might just graduate and leave without them ever figuring themselves out. What if he just left and that was it for them? They didn’t talk anymore? It was the worst thing she could imagine. 

Lardo had always prided herself on her independence, her self-reliance. She didn’t need people, she liked them sure, she always got along with people, had a lot of friends, but she would always been calm about it all. She loved her team, she would never try to deny it. She loved the guys and they loved her. Still she wouldn’t let losing any of them break her. They were just the people that she loved in this moment of her life. She had learned, and learned early, that most people in life were temporary. Her friends from middle school had abandoned her in high-school, her friends from high-school had abandoned her after a few years or simply stopped really talking to her afterwards. She didn’t mind. She lived in whatever time she was in, and just went with the flow, never getting stuck on a certain place or group of people, no matter how much she loved them. That was her practice, her principles for dealing with life, and it had served her well for a long time, until B. Shitty Knight. 

Lardo couldn’t remember how it happened, how he snuck past all of her walls and lodged himself in her heart, but all of a sudden she had this boy who she couldn’t see as temporary, who it would break her to lose. Part of her hated it, hated that bit of weakness that he had forced into her, hated the fact that suddenly she couldn’t be entirely independent but had to rely on him to be there, had to trust him to stay (she never trusted anyone to stay in her life). Still she couldn’t ever seem to bring herself to hate or resent him for it. He was just… Shitty. Larrissa Duan had come to the conclusion that she was biologically incapable of hating Shitty Knight. Instead she loved him in a way that terrified her bone deep. 

Lardo resolved to herself that she wouldn’t demand a more clear cut definition of their relationship. She wouldn’t risk the chance that Shitty might flip and they’d lose the time that they had left. No. She would act as she always acted, as if nothing was going to change at the end of the year. Besides, it wasn’t like Shitty brought it up either. They were busy dealing with the rest of their insane team anyway. Between Jack and Bitty pining over each other, Dex and Nursey pining over each other, and Ransom and Holster pining over each other while also raising their adorable daughter together, she and Shitty had a lot of angst to deal with in their Haus.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm posting this one all at once guys

Shitty Knight knew he was being an idiot. He had no delusions about how damn in love with Lardo he was. He had had a crush on Lardo for as long as he knew her. She was brilliant, wise, creative, funny, caring, loyal, beautiful, and just… amazing. She could make incredible art one moment and then turn around and kick anyone’s ass in beer-pong. She dealt with the guys in an easy no-nonsense way that worked wonders, but never left them doubting whether or not she cared. Lardo was as a matter of fact, the coolest fucking person he knew. In the beginning Shitty had told himself not to fall for her. She had quickly become his best friend (outside of Jack who was really like his brother anyway), and he didn’t want to risk that. He told himself that his sort-of-feelings were really just because society had tried to convince the world that guys couldn’t ever be just friends with incredible girls and not want to date them. After he finally gave up on that he tried to convince himself that really he was just attracted to her. When they first kissed, first started sleeping together, he told himself that it was okay, they were friends with benefits, or at least they weren’t exclusive. It wasn’t going to ruin things. He wasn’t going to fall in love with her and ruin things. 

He knew from the beginning that Lardo didn’t really do relationships. She was a very unattached sort of person. She had explained her philosophy to him and it made sense, so he had told her that was cool and he was just glad she decided to hang with him for the time being. He didn’t let it hurt him. He wasn’t the type of guy who let shit get to him. He didn’t give a fuck. He was Shitty Knight, even his name was a practice in not caring about things that everyone else cared about. (That and he really hated his given name, the association it held with his family, the power it held over him however much he wished it didn’t. Shitty liked going through life somewhat anonymous, trying to get the world to see that even names didn’t have to be the way people always thought). So Shitty Knight wanted it to be remembered that he had TRIED, he had tried really hard, not to fall in love with Larrissa Duan. He wouldn’t even try to say that he had succeeded (Shitty avoided lying as much as possible). 

By the time Shitty admitted to himself that he was in love with Lardo he was in too deep to ever escape. He had no idea what to do about it. He was used to going through the world without a care, just intent on doing what he thought was best. He didn’t really know how to react to Serious Commitments. When Shitty Knight went out into the world he was convinced that he was going to fix the world all by himself, consequences be damned, that he wasn’t going to let anything stop him. Now he realized that he really didn’t think he could ever save the world without Lardo by his side, and he didn’t want to. More than that there were now things that he wouldn’t risk, consequences that were just too much. 

It wasn’t just Lardo, although she was the biggest thing he would never risk losing, and the first thing that came to mind when he thought about it. (Lardo was admittedly the first thing on his mind almost all the time). Shitty wasn’t going to risk his involvement in the team. Most people wouldn’t even be able to tell the difference between his antics when he was a freshmen and now, but they were different, in the beginning Shitty hadn’t really cared if he did something serious enough to get kicked off the team, he did now. Shitty wouldn’t risk Jack. Jack was his best friend, his brother, and he would support and defend him with words and fists and everything else at his disposal for the rest of his life. Shitty wouldn’t risk losing Jemma either, which was new. He hadn’t expected, when Holster called him that day in November, the way the tiny girl would find her way into his heart, but now she was there and she was never leaving. She was his niece and he loved her. (He would in fact love her best, she would be his favorite niece for the rest of his life, even after he was suddenly surrounded by the children of his friends and family when they all hit that age and started having kids). All of these things, commitments that he couldn’t let go of, scared him, but not as much as the idea of losing them did. Lardo more than any of the others. He loved her more than anything else in the whole damn world, he wasn’t sure when he had ceased to be able to imagine life without her at his side but these days he didn’t even want to. He had had the tiniest taste of it when she had gone to Kenya. She had been so far away, and even though they talked all the time, it had hurt. 

So Shitty resolved to himself that he wouldn’t lose Lardo. He was going to hang onto her, as his friend, as the love of his life, as his favorite person ever, as whatever she consented to be, for as long as she would let him. (Not to say that he wouldn’t immediately fuck off if she told him to. Her say-so was the most important thing). They hadn’t ever talked about what they were exactly. He was scared that if he tried to talk to her, to confirm that they were in a committed romantic relationship, that they were dating, she would tell him that that wasn’t what she wanted, or worse, that that wasn’t what she thought they had. Shitty knew they had never discussed being exclusive, but he never dated anyone else (and he may have told people who propositioned him that he was taken, not that he would ever confess to it). He honestly didn’t know if Lardo did or not. He was too scared to ask. He was too afraid to hear her say that he was just a fling, a friend with benefits, just temporary. He didn’t want to lose the relationship they had, the dynamic was good, he didn’t want to lose her as a friend. He didn’t want to lose her. But more than anything he didn’t want to hear her confirm what the darkest voices in his head reminded him of all the time: that he was temporary to her, when she was everything to him. She had told him herself that everyone was temporary to her (she had even included her family in that statement, citing when her parents got divorced and her mom had basically stopped talking to her and her dad, or the step-mom that had come and gone). Shitty knew that he was kidding himself by thinking that he was the exception, but the idea, the hope, had snuck into his chest and he couldn’t seem to chase it out. 

Shitty couldn’t talk to Lardo about it, so he acted like everything was normal. He pretended everything was normal, there was no inner tormoil, there was no approaching graduation, they were just the same as they had always been. He could play normal (well Shitty’s version of normal which was most people’s version of completely and utterly insane). He told himself that it was fine, that they were fine. He refused to acknowledge the looming threat of Real Life and it’s accompanying issues, choosing to focus on the madness that was their team instead. Besides, Lardo wasn’t talking about it either. He tried to use this as an excuse to tell himself that he was being perfectly reasonable. He knew he was being an idiot all the same.


	3. Chapter 3

They played chicken. Lardo wouldn’t admit that that’s what they were doing, but she could feel it sometimes. There would be those moments when they sat together and the silence was heavier than usual, heavy with all of the things they hadn’t talked about. They still didn’t talk about it. She wasn’t sure what Shitty needed to say, only that he hadn’t said it yet. They didn’t talk about it. They really didn’t talk about graduation. Ever. It was a dirty word around Shitty. Lardo wasn’t sure of all the intricacies as to why. She knew he didn’t want to leave the team. He didn’t want to leave Jemma. He didn’t want to leave Jack. He didn’t want to leave her? And he was also worried about leaving Samwell for a much more strict, conservative environment, as law school was bound to be no matter where he went. He was freaked out about going to law school at all (“Am I just doing what my father wants?!”). And he was stressed as hell about his applications. 

Shitty tried to act like law school was not important to him. He treated it the way he treated all of the big important things in his life, casually and with a certain level of derision and scorn. He joked about how he just wanted to prove to his dad that he could, even though he was Shitty the crazy liberal hockey playing son. He said that he wasn’t even sure if it was what he would do in the end. Lardo knew it was mostly an act. Shitty cared. He wanted to go to law school. He wanted it desperately enough that he was too afraid to say it. She knew he would make an amazing lawyer, and that he would do well in law school. Somehow he failed to see it for himself. It terrified him almost as much as the idea of becoming a stereotypical law student terrified him. So, like all things that were just too serious for him, he didn’t talk about it much. He would whine about applications, and he would tell people where he was applying, but he wouldn’t say where he really wanted to go. He stated facts, he never talked about how it all related to him. It bothered Lardo a little, having another thing that they didn’t talk about, but she knew it was just how he dealt with things. 

They probably would have continued their game of chicken forever if it hadn’t been for the events of Lardo’s Junior show. She and Shitty had been up late the night before, bedazzeling, and putting the final touches on everything. It had been good. Lardo had felt at ease and comfortable for the first time in a while, like there was nothing hanging over their heads. The easy camraderie lasted through to the show, the two of them walking around side by side as he other guys from the team did their best to mingle while on their best behavior. Nursey was eagerly talking about art with Dex and Chowder, who listened and participated with various levels of enthusiasm (vague and constant-perpetuals high levels respectively). Ransom and Holster were walking around with Jemma in her stroller, doing their best to be interested. Lardo noted the drink in Holster’s hand, marking Rans as the obligatory sober parent (although both of them hardly ever drank too much these days). Jack and Bitty were together, as one usually found them these days (though Jack repeatedly denied to Lardo that he had feelings for the younger boy) they looked happy. Everyone was happy, right up until the moment Shitty got the email. 

Lardo hadn’t even known he was waiting to hear back from Harvard. He hadn’t told any of them, but the way he lunged for his phone when it chimed made it clear that he was anxiously waiting for something. Shitty’s voice became small as he declared that he had just been accepted to Harvard Law School. There was a moment of profound silence as Shitty and Lardo glanced at each other, all of the things they were trying to ignore rushing back at them all at once. Shitty didn’t look happy, he looked terrified. In turn Lardo couldn’t bring herself to congratulate him, or even smile, just to stare in shock. Then the rest of the guys more or less tackled Shitty with hugs and congratulations, cheering and shouting. Lardo squeezed Shitty’s hand briefly before slipping out of the mess. All of a sudden, after months of not talking about it, not even thinking about it, Lardo couldn’t ignore the facts anymore: Shitty was leaving. He was leaving Samwell and the team and her, and there was no reason why he couldn’t just go on his merry way and never look back. She had no hold on him. She felt like she was falling, drowning, shattering. She ran out of the gallery. She might not be able to stop the emotional breakdown, but Lardo would be damned before she let anyone else witness it.

Somehow Lardo wasn’t surprised when Bitty followed her. He was the sort of guy who noticed when someone ran out of a room, even when no one else did. He was the sort of guy who would never let a teammate run away crying all alone. He set a gentle hand on her arm. 

“Do you want to talk?” He asked softly. She shook her head, shoulders shaking with silent sobs. Bitty let out a slow sad breath as he wrapped her into a hug instead. 

“It’s gonna be okay, honey.” He promised. “I know where you’re at, and it’s an awful place to be, but we’ll weather through this together. You aren’t alone. I’ve got your back.” 

“I’m sorry, Bits.” Lardo muttered, sniffling. “I didn’t mean to fall apart I just-” She couldn’t stop the sob that burst from her chest. Bitty just rubbed her back softly.

“You don’t have to apologize,” he told her gently. He towed her over to a wall where they could sit together. “Come here.” He murmured, pulling her to his side and wrapping his coat around her. Of course she had run out without a coat like an idiot. 

“No, you’ve gotta be freezing.” She protested weakly. He shook his head. 

“I’m getting used to it.” he lied brightly. 

“At least go inside. I’m fine, really, I’m just overreacting.” She told him. He leaned against her side. 

“I’m not going anywhere, Lardo. You aren’t fine, and that’s okay. You don’t have to be fine all the time. You just sit here and cry if you need to, and I’ll be right here.” He told her. She knew it was foolishness to argue with Bitty when he had his mind set on something so she didn’t try, she just leaned into his shoulder and cried. The truth was, she didn’t want to be alone right then, and somehow she didn’t really mind crying in front of Bitty. There was something to the way he treated it that made her feel unashamed. She cried herself out in the cold darkness against Bitty’s shoulder. It did not take particularly long until she managed to subdue it to a small sniffle. Bitty shivered. 

“Here. We’ll compromise.” she told him, tugging at the lighter jacket he wore. He turned it over to her in return for his coat. “Thanks Bitty.” She added softly as they sat there quietly. 

“Of course. I’m here for you, always. We all are, Lardo. That’s what teams are for, that’s what friends are for.” He told her with a small smile. She smiled back a little, realizing how damn stupid she had been to think that these guys, this team, could ever be temporary. 

They were her friends. They had her back, no matter what, and she had theirs. She needed them as much as she needed Shitty. The thing was, she knew, sitting there with Bitty, that she didn’t have to be afraid of losing them. She could no more lose these friends than she could a limb. It didn’t matter that some of them were graduating, they were a team, they always would be. She knew, with complete and utter certainty that if it had been Jack, Ransom, Holster, Dex, Chowder, or any of the other guys who had seen her run out of the gallery, they would be sitting exactly where Bitty was sitting. They would be there because she needed them there, just like they had come that night because she needed them. And in the future they would be there when she needed them too, because that’s what friends were for. 

“Thanks.” She told Bitty again anyway. “I didn’t want to be alone, but I couldn’t… I couldn’t stay in there with everyone celebrating the fact that he’s leaving.” 

“I get it.” Bitty agreed. “I know it’s not the same with me and Jack, we’re not together, I don’t even know if he wants to be, but it’s so hard to listen to everyone go on about him going pro, leaving here… I know it’s different with you and Shitty, you’re together, but-”

“We’re not.” Lardo blurted. Bitty frowned at her. 

“What do you mean?” He asked, not jumping to any conclusions. 

“We’re not together, not really. I mean, we sleep with each other, and he’s my best friend but we’ve never agreed to date. We’ve never talked about it at all actually. We just keep going along, doing whatever, but never talking about it, and I don’t know…” She paused, taking a deep breath to stop herself from starting to cry again. “I don’t really know what I am to him. I don’t know where we stand when he leaves. Are we over? Was there anything to be over? Is he going to date other girls at Harvard, but we’ll still hook up when we see each other? Will we even still see each other? I have no idea.” She confessed. Bitty thought for a long moment. 

“Well, I can tell you one thing for sure. You’ll see Shitty. He’s your best friend, Lardo and he’s not going to abandon you, I can tell you that. He’ll always be there for you he same way I’ll always be there for you, and Jack,  Ransom and Holster, and all the other guys will always be there for you.” Bitty told her. “Obviously I’m no expert, but I think Shitty loves you more than just about anything. Now I can’t say whether that’s in a romantic way or not, but I think you should give him the chance to tell you. I mean, do you want to date Shitty?” He asked. Lardo nodded, unable to say it aloud. Bitty nodded and thought some more. 

“Well, here’s the thing. I know that even if you haven’t said that you two are exclusive, he doesn’t go out with anyone else ever. I’ve seen him turn down girls who flirt with him before. I remember the guys talking about how they would have found Shitty a date for the Screw the year before I came if he wasn’t so busy holding out for you. Take from that what you will. The biggest thing I can tell you though Lardo, is that you aren’t going to lose Shitty as a friend. You won’t. If you talk to him you’ll either end the conversation as a couple, or end it as just friends, but you won’t regret having the conversation. You will regret not having it.” Bitty told her. 

“How can you be sure?” Lardo asked softly, her voice no more than a hoarse whisper. 

“Because I know Shitty, and I’m pretty sure he’d die before he ever let go of you.” Bitty told her. There was an absolute confidence in his voice that made it impossible to doubt the declaration. Lardo didn’t want to doubt him. She was sick of being scared, sick of dancing around the topic with Shitty who she had always been able to talk to about anything. Lardo stood up, a new sort of determination in her chest. 

“You should go inside.” She told him. “Thank you again Bitty.”

“Where are you off to?” Bitty asked. 

“I’m gonna head back to the Haus. I’ve got to figure out what I’m going to say. Shitty will find me when he needs to.” She answered. He nodded and draped his coat back over her shoulders before heading back inside. Lardo marched purposefully off into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aww, poor Bitty has no coat to walk home in... whatever shall he do? Jack??? You aren't going to let your poor southern teammate freeze are you?


	4. Chapter 4

Shitty hadn’t even known how to react when he got the email. He hadn’t told anyone that he was supposed to hear back from Harvard that day, even though he knew he was. He couldn’t bear thinking about it. Then with the chime of his phone and the second it took for him to check his email, his entire life had changed. Harvard Law School. He knew he couldn’t make a decision automatically, and logically he would tell all the guys that he wasn’t sure that he was definitely going to Harvard, but some part of Shitty knew as soon as he saw the email that he was going to Harvard. He couldn’t find it in himself to celebrate, to be excited, not with Lardo standing there by his side looking like he had sucker punched her. He felt like he stood on the edge of a cliff but he didn’t know what lay at the bottom. Then the guys all jumped on him, cheering and yelling. 

Shitty was shocked into action, grinning and thanking them. Then he felt the brief squeeze of Lardo’s fingers in his before suddenly they were gone and he was left grasping at air, trying desperately to recapture her hand, as if he could call her back just by hoping she was there. Still the guys were all gathered around him and he couldn’t just run out, he had to talk to them, had to accept their congratulations, had to try to celebrate. He saw Bitty slip away from the crowd after Lardo. Shitty reminded himself never to take that beautiful little southern boy for granted. He was a good teammate. Shitty figured that after Ransom and Holster graduated Bitty would make a damn good team captain. 

Thinking about team captains Shitty’s eyes sought out Jack in the crowd. Jack met his eyes, and obviously saw the panic and fear there. The Canadian boy made his way to Shitty’s side, doing his best to disperse the rest of the team. 

“Come on guys, calm down before we get kicked out of the gallery.” he told them gruffly. The guys complained a little but eventually spread back out to look at art once more. Jack pulled Shitty into a quiet corner. 

“Are you alright?” Jack asked softly. Shitty shook his head. 

“Not even close.” he answered, voice shaking a little. Jack nodded. 

“I’ve got your back, Shits, no matter what.” he promised. “You want to talk?” Shitty nodded fervently and pulled Jack through a side door into an empty hallway. He slid down to the floor against a wall. His shaky hands found the joint and lighter in his pocket but he left them where they were, knowing that it would be stupid to light up in a school building. He wrapped his arms around his knees instead. Jack slid down by his side, sitting close enough that Shitty could feel the warmth of him there but not crowding him. They sat there in silence for a long time, Shitty breathing a little fast, Jack a calm reassuring presence. 

“I’m so fucking scared of this Jack.” Shitty murmured at last. 

“What?” Jack asked, “Law school?” 

“All of it. Real life.” Shitty told him, green eyes wide. “I’m not… I am not the type of guy who thrives on real life, I don’t want to be. It’s awful. It’s dull. It’s full of oppression, patriarchy, and heteronormativity. But here I am and I have to leave Samwell, where I can be me, and I’m going to law school. Fucking law school, land of the pretentious preppy douche-bags. I mean Harvard Law school is exactly the type of place that my family wants me to go.” He made the declaration with the clear distain in his voice that any place his family wanted him to be was clearly not a place he would like to be. 

“Not all of it is like that.” Jack told him softly. “Real life is not easy, I’ll never try to say that it is, I’m just as scared as you, but we’re both going to survive through it.” He added. 

“But will I still be me when I come out the other side?” Shitty asked, voice quiet and filled with terror. “I mean. If I get through Harvard Law school, become a lawyer, the type of guy my pretentious ass family adores, will I still be ME? I guess I know I can make it, but I just don’t know if Shitty Knight can survive this. I don’t want to lose who I am. I don’t want to lose the person I am here. I was… I was someone else when I was young, I was my father’s child right up until the middle of high-school. Then I figured some shit out and I became me, and I felt so much better, free, comfortable with who I was for the first time. I don’t want to lose that. I don’t want to go back, Jack. I can’t.” 

“Shitty, you are a force of nature.” Jack told him. “I’ve known you since freshmen year. I know you. You are more than you ever give yourself credit for. You think you’re just this guy who breaks rules, and rants about things, the fun guy who makes tub juice and spends all of his time naked, the guy who never cuts his hair. And you know what, maybe some of that is going to change. You might have to learn to play by the rules, not do things that are going to get you arrested or thrown out of school. You might learn to hold your tongue when it would only damage things to talk more. You’ll party less as you get older. You’ll have to put on a somewhat professional look for future clients, and learn a thing or two about public decency in order to hold down a job. That’s true. 

“All of that might, and probably will change over the next few years. None of that is what makes you Shitty. None of that is why we all love you. You are brilliant. You’re one of the most fearless people I’ve ever met. You listen. You are fiercely desperately, stupidly loyal in a way that I appreciate more than I can ever say. You care more than anyone I’ve ever met. You don’t treat anyone like they’re less. Everyone matters to you, everything matters. You care about it all so goddamn much. I can see it, we all can, the way you care so much it hurts sometimes, because you can’t fix the world all by yourself. Those are the things that make you you. The things that are never going to change. All that other stuff, those are side effects of the big things. They might change, the surface stuff might change, but you’ll still be you, no matter what.” Jack finished his little speech without much fanfare, just a small tense smile and wide blue blinking eyes. Shitty stared at him for a moment, then hugged him tight. 

“Thanks man.” He murmured. “I needed that, like a shit ton.”

“I’ve got your back.” Jack told him with a more real smile. Shitty chuckled. 

“You know, that was a damn good speech you gave there.” He told him. “I’m proud of you. You never talk that much at once.” 

“It makes me mad when you get all down on yourself when everyone else knows better.” Jack told him. “Anyway I owe it to you after all the times you’ve talked me down. You never let us down.” 

“That’s not true.” Shitty murmured softly. “I do let people down.” 

“Who?” Jack asked, gently, but Shitty had a feeling he already knew exactly what he meant. 

“Lardo. I- I love her so damn much Jack. I can’t lose her.” Shitty murmured. 

“Then don’t let yourself lose her because you’re scared.” Jack told him simply. Shitty sighed, because in the end, it was that simple. He was scared, too scared to talk to her, so now he was on the edge of losing everything he had with her. The only real way to fix it was to just fucking man up -no not man up sexist language sucked, he had to Fortify- and talk to her. 

“Yeah.” he agreed, resolving to follow Jack’s advice. It was the most terrifying decision he had ever made. Jack nodded at him, and stood up.

“Go.” He told Shitty, offering him a hand up. Shitty let Jack pull him to his feet, then hurried back into the gallery. He spotted Bitty coming back in through the door that led outside. The blonde boy didn’t have his coat anymore. Lardo wasn’t with him. Shitty rushed to his side. Now that he had decided to do something he felt like it had to happen as soon as possible. 

“Bits! Where’s Lardo?” He asked. “Is she alright?” He knew his voice was a little too pushy, a little too urgent, but he couldn’t be bothered with trying to be really polite. Bitty didn’t seem surprised, nor did he seem to care. 

“She’s alright. We talked. She’s okay.” He promised. “She’s headed back to the Haus. I gave her my coat.” 

“Thanks Bitty!” Shitty told him, kissing his tiny teammate on the cheek before rushing off to find his own coat and head out. 

He ran across campus back the Haus, but didn’t spot Lardo on the way there. He checked all of the communal areas of the Haus first out of habit. She wasn’t in the kitchen, or living room, a sliver of fear that she wasn’t actually there worked it’s way into Shitty’s chest. He took the stairs two at a time. He saw Bitty’s open door, and the coat draped over his bed out of the corner of his eye as he turned to his own door. He opened the closed door, feeling like he was stepping off of the edge of the cliff. He walked in anyway. 

Lardo was sitting on his bed. She was still in her cocktail dress from the show. The make-up around her red eyes was a little messed up from what must have been a monumental amount of tears. The thought made Shitty’s heart tighten. She still had Bitty’s jacket draped around her shoulders loosely, the tweed strangely out of place against the fabric of her black dress. It made her look even smaller than normal. She looked like a mess. She was still the most beautiful thing Shitty had ever seen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited just a tiny bit on 3-28-2017


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had so much difficulty deciding whose perspective to write this last chapter from, technically it's Lardo but it's a bit of both honestly.

When Shitty burst into the room he was out of breath, his face flushed from running across campus. He still had his overcoat on. His hair had fallen out of the neat bun he had put it in for her show, and was a mess. He looked a bit wild. He looked so quinesentially Shitty (despite the clothes) that it made Lardo’s chest hurt. She loved him so much. 

“Lardo.” He gasped, still breathing hard. “I’m sorry. I’m an idiot, and I’m really sorry.”

“You aren’t an idiot, Shits.” She told him with a small smile, patting the bed next to her. He shed his coat and tossed it aside before sitting down next to her. “You got into Harvard Law School after all.” She added. He shook his head. 

“I think you know what I mean.” He told her. She opened her mouth to say something but he shushed her, clearly determined to say his piece. She almost wanted to be mad at him for stealing her thunder, her chance to say what she came here to say first, but it was just such a Shitty thing to do that she couldn’t be angry. He was alwas so damn eager when he spoke, his words tumbling out of his mouth so fast that sometimes no one could understand him, tongue struggling to keep up with his head. 

“Lardo, I love you.” He declared. “I know I’ve said that before, I say it to a lot of people, but this isn’t that. I’m in love with you. I don’t think I’ve said that before, and I should have. I should have said it years ago. I’m graduating soon and I can’t keep ignoring it because I’m more terrified of losing you than I have ever been of anything in my life. I know you don’t do relationships. I know you don’t do “In Love” and I know you see almost everyone as temporary. I couldn’t bring myself to ask, I couldn’t survive you telling me that I’m temporary, but if I don’t ask then I’m going to lose you anyway. I can’t lose you. Jesus Lardo I can’t- I love you so fucking much.” Shitty looked so scared, it broke Lardo’s heart. She had hurt him, had made him feel like he wasn’t important, and she hated herself for it. She reached out and took his hand gently, bringing it to her lips to kiss his knuckles. She stared at it instead of looking at his face.

“I’m so sorry.” she breathed, barely more than a whisper. “I love you. I love you so much. I should have told you before. I never meant to make you think you didn’t matter to me. You are so damn important to me, Shitty. I never wanted to say it, I didn’t want you to be. I wanted to think that I could keep everyone as temporary, that I could be entirely independent and only ever rely on myself. I was so scared of letting anyone in, of thinking that anyone was permanent because I thought that as soon as I did I would lose them and then I would be broken again. I didn’t want anyone to have that over me, the power to break me just by walking away. But you do. I fell so in love with you, and I hated that you could destroy me by leaving, so I never said. Then I was just scared, scared because I know you run from commitments. You run from serious things and real life, and I couldn’t handle seeing you run away from me. I’m sorry I never said it. You’re not temporary, Shits. You could never be temporary to me.” 

Lardo’s voice had grown stronger as she spoke, and at the end she looked up, looked him in the eyes for the first time. He was crying. She didn’t care. She was crying too, though she hadn’t noticed at first. She wasn’t sure who leaned forwards first. She was glad. It reminded her of their first kiss, when she hadn’t thought about all the complicatedness of it yet, when it was just the two of them loving each other in a bubble of peace. It was a brief chaste kiss, but when they pulled back they were both grinning. Lardo wiped the tears off of her cheeks with the back of her hand. Bitty’s jacket had fallen off of her shoulders at some point. She couldn’t remember when. Shitty cleared his own face of tears, though his eyes still looked pretty watery. 

“I’m never running away from you.” he promised her. She nodded. 

“I know.” She agreed, before kissing him again. He wrapped his arms tight around her, and she felt safe, whole, and happy, but never trapped. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You are going to go to Harvard aren’t you?” Lardo asked softly later. Shitty nodded. 

“Yeah. I am.” He agreed. “It’s what I want. I have to go somewhere, and Boston isn’t that far away.” 

“I guess, but it’s far enough away.” She told him. “Far enough that I’m gonna hate it.” 

“I will too.” Shitty told her. He could hear the hesitance, the lingering fear in her voice that she would lose him because of the distance. He wished there was a way to get rid of it. “Hey, Lardo?” He asked suddenly. 

“Yup?” 

“My name is Bentley Anthony Knight.” He told her. She sat up abruptly, looking at him in surprise. 

“What the fuck?” She asked, obviously fighting down an amused grin. He smiled wryly. 

“I know. Bentley. It’s fucking awful. My parents would never even call me Ben. Just Bentley, or Son. It was pretty much child abuse.” He confessed. “But I wanted you to know, because… well things are going to change whether I want them to or not. And I might not be able to be Shitty forever. I wanted you to know my stupid name, so no matter what you can always track me down. Whatever version of me is around, that’s his real name.” 

“Thank you.” She told him, kissing him on the cheek. They sat in companionable silence for a while.

“I’m sorry about your horrible name.” Lardo murmured. “But you know what?” 

“Hmm?” He asked, starting to get sleepy. 

“You always will be Shitty to me.” She told him. He chuckled. There was no way she could know about his identity crisis of earlier, but her words still seemed to be a reassurance for it. Of course they were. She knew him, just like Jack did, and all the guys did. They were a team. They were all there for each other no matter what. It wasn’t going to be easy, with Shitty at law school and Lardo finishing her senior year. Nor would the Knight family be happy about their son dating Lardo. Neither of them cared. They were going to get through it together, and come out the other side together. Neither one of them was ever leaving the other’s side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked it! I really had fun with these two!

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and Kudos keep me alive and writing!


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